Michael Massey: Research must be unfettered

Posted: Friday, February 20, 2009

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I'm a doctoral student in international adult education at the University of Georgia, and I know Robert Hill, a UGA professor whose subspecialty in queer theory has attracted the ire of some state legislators.

While queer theory is indeed a subspecialty for Hill, he is an internationally recognized specialist in international adult education and learning and in anti-oppression and pro-social justice work for all marginalized peoples, importantly including women. He directs my research on the use of social entrepreneurship to transform the socioeconomic opportunities of the most destitute peoples of our nation and world.

Most lay citizens do not understand how academic research builds knowledge over time. Researchers often cannot know what current knowledge will produce important future breakthroughs. Just one example is a small piece of 1960s research on a little-known bird species in New England that led to a major 1980s discovery about humans' ability to replace brain cells, which for centuries had been thought to die and be irreplaceable. That, in turn, has led to additional productive research in human physiology, neurology, cognitive sciences and other areas.

Public policy priority-setting is very important. So is unrestricted basic research. While I'd much prefer to find a cure for pancreatic cancer than to study disease in lizards, it just may be that the study of lizards may lead to a cure for pancreatic cancer. The history of science shows major scientific progress is rarely systematic and logical in progression, as most people assume. It is discontinuous, disruptive, often highly controversial and often totally surprising - e.g., the discovery of penicillin in a Petri dish mistakenly left out overnight - coming from the most misunderstood phenomena and least explored ideas.

Both socioeconomically and intellectually, academic freedom drives innovation and comparative national advantage. Academic freedom is in the best global interests of our state and nation, especially in this time of national and global economic emergency.